


Where Home Awaits

by azurefishnets



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: Multi, a whole bunch of unwritten slow burn coming to a conclusion, and i'm terrible at tagging, i'm just weak for soft moments okay, imps gotta imp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:35:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22603327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurefishnets/pseuds/azurefishnets
Summary: Tariq, having nerved himself to a mortal life, presents Oralech with a choice.
Relationships: Oralech/Volfred Sandalwood, Oralech/Volfred Sandalwood/Tariq | The Lone Minstrel
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Where Home Awaits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jasp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasp/gifts).



Oralech jerked awake, scrubbing a hand over his face and blinking hard against a burning sensation in his eyes that might have been tears in other, more human hours. Once, he’d thought himself wrung out, dried and hardened permanently against such importunities, even those caused by the weaknesses of his own flesh. Once, Sung-Gries had wept him down and out, and he’d allowed that lachrymation to wash him to the very deeps of despair before coming out the other side as clean and devoid of life as any of his surgeon’s tools. Once, he had been only cold purpose, a scalpel poised to excise the corruption at the Nightwings’ heart. But they’d stood aside for him, allowed him to drive himself into their Pyre again and again until it was extinguished, and the waters had taken him up once more. Even then he had never dreamed of weeping, even should he have been able to do so. He had deserved that victory, taken it as his due. What dream, then, had brought him to this tearing pain? _Once_ was no more, gone. It had fled upon awakening, only the vast quiet of his house settling around him into the restless _now_.

Oralech swung his feet out of bed, absently rubbing at the bumps on his scalp where the horns had once erupted, the tangible evidence of his past despair long shed. They itched. Even after these long years of being as far from the Downside as he could contrive to stay, the signs of it lay on him more heavily than he’d have liked. He’d been vain, when he was young and all-too-human, about his looks. Or, at least, he’d been proud of the admiring glances he drew on the fields of the Rites from friend and foe alike, not least those of his own teammates. He’d given it up, somewhere, as he learned how little his new life cared for human vanity. He looked over at Volfred, comfortably rooted in a patch of moonlight, and frowned, just a little. He still got admiring glances from someone, at least. It was…pleasant. In a life distinctly devoid of pleasantries, it was still a surprise when he caught that sort of look, to know that it, like Volfred, was genuine and had been all along, his other once-teammates aside. The gift of his and Volfred’s regained understanding had been the last thing Oralech had expected from his return, but he was grateful. Volfred was teaching him by example, little by little, how to regain that pride in himself, the value of some measure of self-vanity. For that relearned skill, he was grateful too.

In this quiet now, however, Volfred slept and Oralech did not. His need for validation, or whatever had woken him, was not so great that he would wake his Prime Minister. And…it was not so quiet as all that, now that he came to listen. Somewhere near the house front, there was muffled commotion, the sound of Ti’zo’s impish screeches mingling with something or someone he could not hear. The imp didn’t sound as though there was danger. Rather, it was delight Oralech heard from him, the sound of pure joy. Only the members of one group would elicit that kind of glee from the wise drive-imp, but what kind of hour did they think this was? The only ones out at this time were the night-patrols and the moon.

To see the Scribes’ Herald at his door, embracing Ti’zo, was perhaps not as great a shock as Oralech would have preferred. Volfred had told him, once, that they had met by chance out in the ordered streets of the city, but Tariq and Celeste had scarcely lingered before fleeing. It had been rather more than a year since that day, and Oralech had, in his heart of hearts, hoped he and the other Nightwings would never hear from them again. He’d had enough of the Scribes’ will, enough of their visions and their plans, enough and more than enough. The world was made new, cleansed by the Reader’s sacrifice and the final fruition of the Rites. Whatever the Scribes had hoped to gain, their schemes were of no more import. It seemed the Scribes’ Will still held sway, however, at least here in this moment.

Tariq looked up from Ti’zo’s loving frenzy and the small smile on his face as he met Oralech’s gaze should have been irritating, but in truth, Oralech found it hard to qualify what he felt. Mostly, the curiosity he’d once thought he’d killed. What would draw such a quiddity as Tariq back from his long search for home? It could only be something more pressing, more precious than the wandering. Oralech thought himself a reasonably intelligent man, all said and done. It was not in his nature to shy away from uncomfortable truths, and the truth here, he thought, was that Tariq must be here for that one perplexing aspect of mortality that had always seemed to elude him. That connection that had hovered, tenuous, between the Minstrel and Volfred all the long seasons in the Downside. An understanding that, for better or for worse, was far different than the one that existed between Oralech and the Sap. It remained to be seen, Oralech supposed, whether theirs superseded his own.

Oralech spoke at last, his voice rough. “Why now?”

Tariq answered, soft yet implacable as ever, “Oralech sir, for one such as I, there _is_ only now, and so it is that to which I have come.”

Ti’zo chattered, a little anxiously, asking if Oralech had woken Volfred. Oralech shook his head.

“I shall. He will want to see you as soon as possible.”

“I…” Tariq looked away. “May I ask you to wait, sir? It was ill-mannered of me to come so late. And, truth told, I feel it is you to whom I must speak, at least briefly, before speaking to Volfred.”

“I?” Oralech stared at him. “I know not what you think you should say to me that could not already have been said.”

Tariq shook his head, just a little, milky-pale hair floating around him. “There were many words that should have been said to you, Oralech sir, that could not have been said at that time, and in that place. But…although I am but a pale reflection of the Scribes’ radiance, I am their Will even yet. If you would be so kind as to hear me, I would impart some share of that knowledge to you.”

“The Scribes and their visions, if they existed in the way their admirers think they did, are no more necessary to my current life than they were to my old one,” Oralech said, but the pesky curiosity he had never quite been able to quash had been awakened. He gestured Tariq ahead of him, Ti’zo following uncertainly, towards his small and austere kitchen.

“Would you care for something to eat?” The inanities of politeness were still a little foreign to him, but before Tariq’s soft pleasantries, Oralech felt it only fair. Tariq smiled, just a little, as if Oralech had made a joke that only the minstrel was privy to, and agreed readily. Oralech pulled cheese and bread out and sat them on the table, adding a glass of dark wine from a decanter. Rough fare in this upper world, but it was, after all, the middle of the night, and Tariq seemed to enjoy it, picking up the delicate glass in his long fingers and turning the wine round and round to catch the ruby glints deep within.

“A vast difference from Downside cuisine,” he observed, mild as ever. “I imagine Hedwyn enjoys it greatly.”

Oralech shrugged. “I suppose.”

“Perhaps I shall have the chance to ask him.”

Ti’zo, having assured himself that the discussion was to remain amicable, bade them both a good evening and added, as an aside, that these things were all very much simpler amongst the imps and he hoped they figured it out, leaving both of them blinking just a little. Ti’zo gave a snort that sounded suspiciously like an impish chuckle and left them, staring at each other in the gloom.

“So. Speak.” Oralech said gruffly, folding his arms and staring at the Herald.

Tariq sat for a moment more, staring into his glass of wine as if it held all the stars and all the years between them.

“You know, Oralech sir, that I never wished you ill, nor hoped for your death.”

“That’s not the same as wishing me well, or aiding my cause,” Oralech said, his tone studied and even.

“Nay, you speak truly there. It is neutrality, as the Scribes Willed of me. Celeste and I… we had a duty to watch over those partaking in the Rites. Her demesne was the other triumvirates and ensuring their safe passage. The Nightwings, however, were _my_ especial duty, and I failed them, allowed the continuity of their watch to be destroyed.” Tariq drew something on the table, a little sigil that might have been a star or might have just been nerves. “Volfred’s Plan… was a regaining of my own purpose, in a way. My highest goal in the service of the Scribes.”

“I, too, was a Nightwing. Did I mean so little on my own?” Oralech’s voice dropped to a growl, an uncomfortable reminder of his bygone demonhood.

“Oralech sir, I… I am not infallible. Erisa’s betrayal threw all in disarray, creating a vacuum where once I had seen a strong and united trio to carry on the vision to which I was meant to enact. Indeed, it was a failure of my own vision. It—” Tariq paused, looking vastly uncomfortable. “It was then I knew the Scribes’ Will was coming to an end.”

“ _Good_.” Oralech said, his face dark.

“Aye, sir, perhaps it is so,” Tariq said, his tone even softer than before. “But I—Oralech sir, I did not want to be ended so thoroughly as that, nor so abruptly. And thus, I threw my all into the Plan. You were gone, and I saw my own eventual fate in your fall, were I to fail. Volfred still lived. His will was strong and fierce, despite his temporary setback. I was…drawn to him. As the moon reflects the sun, so I chose to follow his star.”

Oralech sat back. He hadn’t expected this mirroring of his own feelings and thoughts, especially considering the being with whom he was having this midnight discussion. He had never expected to find himself compared to the Heralds in any way, but he could not say he thought this particular point of congruence was completely foreign.

“And so, Oralech sir, we come to this moment. The Scribes did not Will this. Celeste has gone her way, for now, until our stars align again. In this, I walk alone, and I come to make a Herald’s restitution.” Tariq looked up, his eyes burning in his pale face. “It is…what _I_ want.”

Almost, Oralech laughed. “And is that all you want? To come asking for my forgiveness as if you were a child who had broken a window? To… _compete_ with me for whatever of Volfred’s attentions to which you feel entitled, as if this were a Rite you could win?”

Tariq shook his head slowly. “No, sir, it is not my intent to compete with you in any way. If the restitution you seek is for me to leave, I shall do as you ask and you shall never see me again. And although I have no right to ask anything in return, I shall only ask that you give Volfred my kind regards and speak no more of this discussion.”

“It would be only what I deserve, for the grief I have come to at your Scribes’ hands,” Oralech sighed. “Were we still in the Downside, my answer would be different, Herald.”

Tariq nodded, his face pale and still and blank, his hand covering the strap of his lute over where, Oralech supposed, his heart would lie if he were mortal enough to have such a fleshly thing. “You have chosen then, and I would not gainsay you. I ask pardon for disturbing you and take my leave, as promised.”

Oralech motioned him back down as Tariq made to stand. “You didn’t use to be this hasty, Heral—no. Tariq. I have not given you my answer yet, as it is no longer only my answer to give.” He turned to the door. “Come, Volfred, stop hovering and sit.”

Volfred glided forward, his roots sliding over the tiled floor of the kitchen, staring at Tariq. “You came after all, my friend.” He swept a hand through the foliage at his crown, just beginning to bloom with spring’s buds. “I thought never to see you again. I still have your hat, you know.”

Tariq sat still, eyes trained on Volfred’s face. “Aye, so the Scribes Willed it, Volfred sir. At the conclusion of the rites, Celeste and I were meant to take our place at home in the stars, our… mortal flesh unmade and our songs unspun into the abyss.”

“Yet you will not go?” The look of hope, quickly hidden by the political mask the Sahrian minister had learned to summon on command, was not lost on Oralech. Well, and he’d known that Volfred’s attentions were ever divided. The all-subsuming love of youth had, for them, long settled into the practicalities of life responsibilities and time spent together as it become possible. This was one division he’d always known was in Volfred’s heart; to see it laid bare in this way was not as painful as his private fears had always made it. He slid a look at Tariq. The minstrel’s face, to his surprise, was turned to his, his golden eyes looking at Oralech with scarcely less hope than he’d looked to Volfred.

“Nay, sir, not yet. I wanted something that superseded their Will.” Tariq nodded to Oralech. “I have come to make restitution to someone whom I owe much, as you heard.”

Volfred sat down with them, the blossoms on his head beginning to drift and fall lazily to the table. Tariq picked them up, peering at their fragility, turning them round and around in his fingers. Almost, it seemed, without his knowing of it, he began to weave them together into a loose wreath.

“But that is not all?” Volfred said abruptly, his hand seeking Tariq’s sleeve, the wood catching the velvet of it and creating the faintest hiss as they moved against each other. In the quiet stillness of the kitchen, it sounded as loud as the roar of the Shimmer-Pool. Tariq and Oralech both looked down, at fine-grained brown against lunar white, and Tariq smiled just a little, his fingers stilling.

“Nay, Volfred sir. It is not all. Celeste, in her inimitable way, helped me understand that I should seek something more than a home that, for now, refuses to be found. Perhaps I did not want it enough?” Tariq nodded to himself thoughtfully. “I search now for that which I do want, if it is not a home in the stars.”

Volfred nodded. “I could never turn you away, my friend, when you come seeking.”

“Aye sir, I know. And yet… I was unaware of the renewed relationship between you at first, but it is the talk of the Union and when I entered the city it came to my attention at once. It is not my intention to replay Erisa’s treachery in any sense, nor do I believe that I have the power to cause such damage to your relationship, and yet I come here in any case. I suppose…it is a mortal conundrum and so I offer it to those who _are_ mortal. And yet, should I stay, I admit, sirs, that the companionship I offer is not that of friendship, or solely that of friendship in any case.” Tariq’s hands began their weaving again, taking the tiny flowers as they fell and adding them to the circle of greenery in his hands. “And so, I offer the choice to one whom I wronged most grievously and would not see wronged again.”

Oralech stood abruptly, turning into a measured pace of the room with his head bowed. Tariq’s sincerity was palpable, the contrition and longing he held in equal measure almost tangible even to those who did not possess a Reader’s skills. The softness of his desire hurt. Oralech had known that soft wanting before, years ago. He’d hardened his own pain and want, molded it into a demon’s form, and burned the last residues away in the pyres of the Rites. “And what, Tariq, would you have me do if I tell you to stay? I will not walk away, to disappear into the night and never be seen again. I do not have that luxury, nor would I claim it if I did.” Such gestures were foreign to him even now, but he reached to take Volfred’s other hand, as if the feeling of the Sap’s wooden fingers against the coldness of Oralech’s own would provide some stability in this reeling world. Volfred turned his hand up and squeezed, just a little, enough to give him courage. “I have left my home many times over the course of my life, and it was never by choice. I would not now choose to leave the one that I have found here.”

“I would never ask it of you, sir.” Tariq met his eyes squarely, gold to gold. “I suppose that all I am asking is if there is room for one such as I in this world that the two of you have created. Once it was the Scribes’. Now, it is the Nightwings’, and I wish to stand by their side once again and watch over the world they create. Perhaps one day I shall leave again, as little by my own choice as yours ever were, but I want to live, here, now, with the ones that I love.”

Oralech snorted. “That is not reassuring, as that most assuredly does not include me, Herald.”

“Does it not, sir?” Tariq’s face crumpled, just a little. “I am a poor ambassador for my own feelings, it seems. Your will, your want, is no less strong than Volfred’s, even before the Nightwings were fractured, and it only grew stronger during your…trials. You burn as bright as any star, Oralech sir. I am most fond of Ti’zo, and of course all the other Nightwings both in the Union and the Downside, but I came not to them first. I came here, to Volfred…and to you, knowing that one without the other could never burn as bright.” His eyes, at last, slid away from Oralech’s and he looked away. “Many words, and no time, then, but I have nothing but time now.” He offered Oralech the wreath of Volfred’s flowers, still not quite meeting his eyes. “I would spend it here, with… with you both, but unlike the Scribes, I cannot impose my Will on the world. I can merely…ask.”

Oralech took the wreath automatically, turning it around and around in his fingers as his mind reeled. Yes, there had been looks, the same he’d caught from Volfred, back in those softer days, but Tariq had never said anything, never spoken so frankly, and Oralech had discounted them from such an unusual source as he. He had always presumed he’d read the situation wrongly, a recurring pattern in his life, and after his return, Tariq’s quiet charms had always been directed solely at Volfred. Not without reason, he had to admit, but this answered some questions he hadn’t really known he’d had.

Volfred said, a little note of teasing in his voice, “And am I to have no say in this?” Oralech and Tariq both swung their gazes to him, giving him a look of ironic disbelief in Oralech’s case and polite cynicism in Tariq’s. He put up his hands, laughing. “Very well, you know my mind even without the Reading, but if this choice you offer Oralech is that important to you, I shall abide by his word.”

It was not in Oralech’s nature to hesitate or dither. Demonhood had only put those traits on the outside, but a tendency to forward motion without fear had always been a part of his makeup and he saw no reason to start now. Tariq had put aside his fears and hesitations to come and ask this impossible thing. It was a challenge. And it was also mutual surrender, wrapped in one soft and pale moonlit question. If Oralech dared the one, it was an obligation to take the other.

He reached out with both hands, wreath held cautiously toward Tariq, whose head was bowed as he waited for Oralech’s decision. With care, he placed the crown of flowers on Tariq’s head and savored the surprise in those harvest moon eyes as they swung up once more to meet his. “Stay then, Herald, and convince me that I’m making the right decision.” Tariq’s hair against his fingers was cool and smooth, silky mist, so different from Volfred’s leafy foliage.

Tariq blinked. “You truly want this?”

“Can you not feel that I do?” Oralech returned, curious. “If what you say is true, should you not have known that sooner than I?”

Tariq shrugged. “Even to me, the ways of mortal want are mysterious. It was never a certainty.” He looked around vaguely. “I suppose I must decide where to stay, and with what I shall occupy my time in my new home in the Union.” He reached up to his flower crown, and the small ever-present smile on his face grew a little larger. “Everything is made new.”

Volfred stood, looking down at them. “I believe the logistics of the thing may wait, my friend. My Tariq. … _our_ Tariq, I suppose I should say.” His smile grew smug. “I trust that absence made the heart grow fonder.”

Tariq quirked an eyebrow at him. “Perhaps you shall have the chance to ask Celeste, one day.”

“Indeed. As you say, we have nothing but time.” Volfred held out his hand to Oralech, pulling him from his seat, and then to Tariq. “Come. Let us go retrieve your hat.”

“Nay, sir, I believe I prefer the flowers…” their voices faded as the trio walked out of the kitchen and into the shadowed future. Ti’zo, listening carefully from his favorite nest, snorted to himself. Truly, it was much simpler with imps, but it sounded as though they’d figured it out to everyone’s satisfaction. He looked forward to spreading the news to the other Nightwings, come the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi jasp, Happy Chocobox and I hope you enjoyed! Thank you for the opportunity to write the Volfraliq of my heart.


End file.
